


With His Tail In the Air

by tirsynni



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Lokitty, Odin Deserves This, Pre-Thor (2011), Ragnarok Reference, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-07 00:39:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15897375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tirsynni/pseuds/tirsynni
Summary: The aftermath of the Snake Incident, in which Thor discovers Loki can turn into more than a snake.





	With His Tail In the Air

**Author's Note:**

> A commission fic requesting for platonic Thorki fluff. :D

Loki scowled as if the very air itself offended his delicate sensibilities. Against his common sense, all too aware of how Loki would react if he saw him, Thor grinned and leaned against the doorframe, watching his little brother. Sitting on his balcony, Loki seemed oblivious to him, leveling that fierce scowl at the blue sky outside. Perhaps the color offended him? Not matching his own colors? Thor lost his last grip then and snickered to himself. He wouldn’t be surprised if Loki did find a way to enchant the sky so it wore his colors for a day. Barely a day over two hundred and already Loki’s magic was a terrifying thing… Well. For other people, anyway.

At the sound, Loki’s head snapped around, green eyes flashing with all the warning of a snake’s fangs. In response, Thor surrendered and laughed. His body shook with it. His eyes squeezed shut, Thor guffawed, uncaring of the high breaks in his voice like he himself was two hundred instead of a mighty three hundred and fifteen. Mayhap he would be stabbed this day -- again -- but  _ truly _ .

“If you are  _ quite _ done,” Loki said, voice as hard and cold as ice, “you are just competent enough to find the door. You’re leaning against it. All you need to do is turn around. Or fall backward. I care not which.”

Still snickering, Thor peeked through tearing eyes at his brother’s offended face. He even resembled a snake, pulled back and ready to strike. How  _ dare _ a mere Aesir prince invade his space?

The thought almost sent him into a fresh gale of laughter, but he didn’t want to go back to Eir  _ again _ for a stab wound. “Ah, Brother, you take offense where none is intended! Besides, I see not why you are angry.  _ I  _ was the one stabbed.”

Stabbed by a snake-turned-cackling little brother. In Thor’s defense, the snake had been beautiful, green scales like emeralds as it slithered through the grass. Three feet at most, with no bright markings or noisy rattles to indicate a poison. Thor expected mayhap a nip, not for the snake to transform in his arms and stab him.

“Mother laughed, you know,” Thor added. That did it. Loki’s face relaxed into a neutral expression, but his sparkling eyes gave him away. Thor grinned and strode forward, throwing himself on the balcony beside Loki. Loki rolled his eyes but his knives -- soon to be infamous, at this rate -- remained hidden. “Lady Eir seemed to be the only cross one.”

And cross she was! She said few words but all scathed, alight with a terrible rage. She scolded Loki until his too pale skin glowed red, and then his little brother fled. Too soon, truly. 

“Cross at both of us,” he continued, and he watched Loki’s shoulders slump away from his ears. “She seemed positive that I had done something foolish to deserve one of your blades.”

Here Thor paused and stared pointedly at Loki, but Loki failed to notice his cue to explain what exactly foolish thing Thor had done. Loki’s gaze shifted to Sol and her graceful descent through the sky. No scowl this time, only a thoughtful frown. “And Father?”

Thor hummed and scooted closer to Loki, so their shoulders pressed together. Soon, they would be too big to fit like this together on the balcony. Every day, Thor grew up and out, while Loki… Well, his little brother grew up and up. Far more gracefully than Thor, as Loki liked to point out. No knocking over mugs of mead on Alfheim dignitaries for  _ him _ .

Speaking of mead… “He said nothing about it, just that he was going to get a drink.” Thor frowned, watching Loki out of the corner of his eye. “For some reason, that made Mother laugh harder.”

As Thor hoped, that at last coaxed a smile from Loki. “Ah, yes. She keeps saying he deserves all of this but refuses to clarify.”

Which was an excellent segue into Loki clarifying  _ why he stabbed Thor _ . Thor waited, hopefully, looking at his brother with wide eyes and a small pout which earned him an apple dumpling just that morning, but Loki only said, “It was a fine snake, wasn’t it?”

“An excellent snake, Brother,” Thor assured him. Just one that turned into Loki and  _ stabbed him _ .

Loki glanced at Thor and grinned. On one hand, Thor always liked seeing his little brother smile. On the other hand, he did not trust that grin at all. “I can turn into more than snakes, you know.”

No, Thor didn’t. Thor didn’t know his brother could turn into a  _ snake _ . “What else can you do?”

Loki’s lips quirked up until he appeared half-mad.  _ God of Mischief _ , they had started to call him, and Thor always stood -- or sat, in this situation -- in the best spot to see him prove it. “Watch me,” Loki said, and then he was gone.

Well, not quite gone. A flash of green and a flare of movement and then a small black cat sat in Thor’s lap, tail swishing. Loki blinked slowly at him, eyes squeezing shut before slitting open to stare at Thor. 

“Loki,” Thor breathed. He raised a hand to pet Loki before reconsidering. This form came complete with five sharp ends: no wonder Loki chose it. Two of those ends were alarmingly close to Thor’s more delicate bits. 

Loki huffed but didn’t stop purring. He leaned forward and butted his head -- so tiny! -- against Thor’s hand. Awestruck, Thor pet Loki from his head to his back. His normally prickly brother was nothing but soft and sleek in this form, He was adorable in both forms, Thor acknowledged, but this one was more likely to get his face clawed and less likely to get his face hexed.

“Brother,” he began. Too late, he caught the glitter in Loki’s eyes, familiar no matter what form he took. Loki leaped from Thor’s lap, digging his claws in as he went, and bolted for the door. The door Thor left open because he had focused on Loki. Between one blink and the next, Loki was gone, leaving Thor alone and bewildered on the balcony.

“Brother?” Thor called, getting up and jogging to the door. There he saw Loki standing by the door leading from his rooms to the hallway, tail tall in the air and flicking madly. A door Thor knew he had closed but now stood open, wide and inviting. Loki winked at him, an odd thing coming from a cat, and then his brother bolted into the hall. 

Oh, no. “Brother, wait!” Thor bounded forward and looked down the hall just in time to see a long tail vanish around a corner. “Wait! You’re too small! Wait!”

Terrified by mental images of someone tripping over Loki or -- horror of horrors -- Volstagg stepping on him, Thor ran down the hallway. He skidded around a corner, bumping his shoulder into the wall, and then almost slammed into a passing servant. “Excuse me, excuse me,” he managed as she yelped and juggled several mugs. “I need to -- Brother! Wait!”

Loki sprinted down the hall with a stunning swiftness considering he was the size of Thor’s boot. He slipped around and through legs as Thor tripped and ran after him. He swore he heard his brother laugh when he slammed face-first into General Tyr’s chest. He stumbled away, apologizing and feeling like a newborn colt as he took after Loki. Behind him, Tyr shouted about more training and something about dawn. Thor pretended not to hear him.

Loki seemed to fly down a flight of stairs. This time, Thor did take out a servant. Soaked in mead and with glass shining in his now stringy hair, Thor stopped yelling at his brother so much as he began shouting curses after his furry hide. Another servant pressed herself against a stone wall and stared at him like he was mad as he chased his feline brother down the hallway.

For a breath, Thor considered stopping and letting his foolish brother go. Let his brother find out how dangerous Asgard was when he was so small and delicate. Then his brother leaped out a window and Thor began screaming anew.

Thor threw himself at the window, bumping a servant as he went. He barely heard the man’s yelp or the shattering of glass. Instead, he leaned out to see if he still had a brother left or just a furry smear on the ground below.

Bright eyes blinked at him from a rooftop six feet away. “Mreow?” Loki inquired.

Thor scowled at him. “Never you mind what’s in my hair!” he snapped. “When I catch you, you will wish you had stabbed me harder!”

“Mreow.”

“Oh, shut up!”

Thunder rumbled in the sky, but Thor ignored it. He looked at the roof, then at the window. The window was big enough for him to fit through, with enough of a ledge for him to jump from. Satisfied with his excellent plan, Thor began to clamber up. 

Loki stood on the brown roof, tail high behind him due to the slope. As Thor balanced on the window ledge, it began to flick wildly, and his eyes widened. “Mrrr --”

“Do not dare order me, Brother!” Thor took in Loki’s fluffed fur and felt satisfied. His brother knew what was coming for him. Triumphant, Thor leaped after Loki.

Too late, Thor realized Loki wasn’t scared of  _ him _ . Loki was scared of his weight on the flimsy roof.

It collapsed under them with barely a sound. Thor tried to grab Loki to keep him safe, but the ingrate only screeched and clawed at him the entire way down. They landed on something surprisingly soft with a mess of curses and shrieks.

Judging by how Loki clung to his head, four out of five sharp ends digging into Thor’s scalp, the fall caused no injury. Good. Now  _ Thor _ could injure him. On his back, covered with dirt and debris, legs kicking in the air, Thor flailed at Loki. The little bastard refused to budge from his head, hissing at him. “ _ Loki, you little _ \--”

A familiar sigh cut him off. Thor and Loki froze. Ah, the soft stuff was hay. They had landed in an empty stall in the stable, right across from Sleipnir. Sleipnir ignored them, contentedly eating an apple from Odin’s hand. Odin, who was covered in dirt and debris, with a piece of wood sticking out of his hair. Odin stared at them with his one eye, unblinking.

“Hello, Father.”

“Mreow.”

A muscle in Odin’s jaw twitched. He gave Sleipnir the rest of the apple and turned away. Thor heard him mumble something about Alfheim brandy.

The claws digging into Thor’s head vanished, and Loki settled in the straw beside him, back in his usual form. “He took that remarkably well.”

Thor watched Odin’s receding form and grimaced. Hadn’t he finished off the brandy last week, after the incident with the dignitary and the resulting food fight?

“You’re bleeding, Brother,” Loki said helpfully, gesturing at his head. 

Thor scowled and touched his forehead. Yes. The little shit had actually drawn blood. “If anyone asks, there was a harpy involved.”

“Yes, yes.”

Loki stretched out his legs and settled back on his hands, immaculate despite the chase and fall. Thor transferred his scowl to him. He refused to go to Eir for this. He  _ refused _ . “This is all your fault, anyway, Brother.”

Thor’s scowl deepened. Thunder cracked outside. “My fault! You turned into a cat and ran!”

“That didn’t mean you needed to chase me!”

“You wanted me to chase you!”

“Like I wanted you to pick me up earlier?”

“Ye--” Thor paused and reconsidered. “Wait. Was that why you stabbed me? Because I picked you up without permission?”

Loki blinked at him, looking remarkably feline even now. “No. I stabbed you because you ate the last apple dumpling. Keep up, Brother.”

The last… Thor surrendered and grabbed handfuls of hay. Loki shrieked as Thor began shoving them down Loki’s no longer immaculate tunic. “Brother, stop! Stop it! Thor!”

Outside, the thunder settled. Yelping and throwing hay at each other like it was snow, neither brother noticed.

  
  


*Lokitty translation: 

  1. “What’s in your hair?”
  2. “Kinky, Brother.”
  3. “Thor, don’t --”



**Author's Note:**

> For more Loki and Thor, check me out on [tumblr](http://tirsynni.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
